Theatrical Declamation and Wagner’s Works – A Research Overview

Abstract

Exactly 100 years after Rudolf Kirsten’s Streifzüge durch die musikalische Deklamation in Richard Wagners Parsifal,1 I pursued the hypothesis, that Wagner’s music has been shaped by theatrical declamation.2 This gap indicates that the deep connection between his works – which includes not only the music but also the performance on stage – has been forgotten in the meantime. Instead, music scholars during the 20th century have claimed that Wagner’s musical declamation is ‘naturalist’. But as early recordings from around 1900 illustrate, the vocal delivery of actors, the declamation of dramatic texts was on the contrary everything else than natural.

Given the fact that the styles of speech and even spoken everyday language itself change over time, my hypothesis was to verify the extent of the impact of contemporary theatrical declamation in Wagner’s works. In this essay, I will first give an overview about the musicological research about this topic that focuses on my own writings, especially my doctoral dissertation. In a second part, a report about performance research projects follows that have been launched ever since its publication.